Jodie Devos / Nicolas Krüger AND LOVE SAID...

 

AND LOVE SAID...

 

Jennifer Pike / Martin Roscoe ELGAR Violin Sonata VAUGHAN WILLIAMS The Lark Ascending - Violin Sonata

VIOLIN SONATA  -  THE LARK ASCENDING

Mary Bevan / Roderick Williams / William Vann / Jack Liebeck TIME AND SPACE

TIME AND SPACE

Timothy Ridout / Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne / Jamie Phillips BRITTEN | VAUGHAN WILLIAMAS | HINDEMITH | MARTINU

BRITTEN | VAUGHAN WILLIAMAS | HINDEMITH | MARTINU

Tamsin Waley-Cohen / Orchestra of the Swan / David Curtis VAUGHAN WILLIAMS The Lark Ascending - Violin Concerto ELGAR Introduction and Allegro - Serenade for Strings

VAUGHAN WILLIAMS - ELGAR

BBC Symphony Orchestra / Martyn Brabbins VAUGHAN WILLIAMS Symphony No. 3 "Pastoral" - Symphony No. 4

SYMPHONY No. 3 - SYMPHONY No. 4

Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra / Andrew Manze VAUGHAN WILLIAMS Symphony No. 7 "Antartica" - Symphony No. 9

SYMPHONY No. 7 - SYMPHONY No. 9

Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra / Andrew Manze VAUGHAN WILLIAMS The Lark Ascending - Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis

THE LARK ASCENDING - FANTASIA ON A THEME BY THOMAS TALLIS

Tasmin Little THE BEST OF TASMIN

THE BEST OF TASMIN

Carolyn Sampson / Joseph Middleton THE CONTRAST

                                                      ENGLISH POETRY IN SONG

Janet Sung / Simon Callaghan / BrittenSinfonia / JacvanSteen THE DEEPER THE BLUE...

SOMM Recordings’ The Deeper the Blue offers an intriguing exploration of colour and timbre in music and a revealing investigation of the connections between four very different composers over a near-100-year period.

Taking its title from painter Wassily Kandinsky’s assertion that a deepening colour ultimately “turns into silent stillness and becomes white”, the recording illuminates the intimate relationship between student and teacher: Vaughan Williams and Maurice Ravel, Kenneth Hesketh with Henri Dutilleux and the influence on Dutilleux of Ravel.

Hailed by The Washington Post for her “riveting” playing and “exquisite tone”, virtuoso violinist Janet Sung and the Britten Sinfonia – one of the UK’s “most flexible chamber orchestras” (Evening Standard) – make their SOMM debuts alongside long-time label artists, conductor Jac van Steen and pianist Simon Callaghan, the latter partnering Sung in Ravel’s jazz- and Blues-accented Sonata for Violin and Piano. The last chamber music Ravel composed, it is a colouristic extravaganza brimfull with joy and irrepressible energy.
The harmonic language of Dutilleux’s piano suite Au gré des ondes boasts a wide colour palette enhanced in brilliance and charm by his former pupil Kenneth Hesketh’s orchestral arrangement, here in its first recording. Harmonic and instrumental colour is central to Hesketh’s own music.
Also receiving its first recording, and composed in 2016 for Janet Sung, Hesketh’s Inscription-Transformation for violin and orchestra is a richly intricate weaving together of the textures and tones of violin and orchestra. Commemorating Dutilleux and Hesketh’s grandmother, who died during its composition, it’s a febrile, endlessly mutating work that pits stratospheric violin against agitated orchestra in music as complex as it is gratifying in the intensity of its expression.
Ralph Vaughan Williams’ compact, muscular, Bach-influenced Concerto for Violin and Orchestra combines meditative repose with dance-like extroversion, Maurice Ravel’s ever-popular Tzigane a fiery, virtuosic homage to Hungarian folk music.

Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra / Andrew Manze VAUGHAN WILLIAMS The Lark Ascending - Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis

Andrew Manze is widely celebrated as one of the most stimulating and inspirational conductors of his generation. His extensive and scholarly knowledge of the repertoire, together with his rare skill as a communicator and his boundless energy, mark him out. Manze’s position as Chief Conductor of the NDR Radiophilharmonie Hannover has been extended until 2023.

James Ehnes has established himself as one of the most sought-after violinists on the international stage. Gifted with a rare combination of stunning virtuosity, serene lyricism and an unfaltering musicality, Ehnes is a favourite guest of many of the world’s most respected conductors including Vladimir Ashkenazy, Marin Alsop, Andrew Davis, Stéphane Denève, Mark Elder, Iván Fischer, Edward Gardner, Paavo Järvi, Juanjo Mena, Gianandrea Noseda, David Robertson and Donald Runnicles

Mark Padmore / Nicholas Daniel / Britten Sinfonia RALPH VAUGHAN WILLIAMS - JONATHAN DOVE - PETER WARLOCK

Tenor Mark Padmore is joined by members of Britten Sinfonia in 3 quintessential British song-cycles: Ralph Vaughan Williams' "On Wenlock Edge" (with pianist Huw Watkins), "Ten Blake Songs" (with oboist Nicholas Daniel) and Peter Warlock's best-known work, "The Curlew". "The End" by Jonathan Dove (a co-commission by Britten Sinfonia and Wigmore Hall with support from the Tenner-for-a-Tenor campaign) receives its world première recording here

Isabelle van Keulen / NDR Radiophilharmonie SERGEI PROKOFIEV Violin Concerto No. 1 WILLIAM WALTON Viola Concerto RALPH VAUGHAN WILLIAMS The Lark Ascending

Here is a disc whose contents seem odd as it couples the violin concerto of a (still) Russian composer to the viola concerto of an English one. Instead, the coupling is very clever since Prokofiev’s First Violin Concerto, whose premiere was in 1923 (while the composer was still living in France, a few years before his return to Soviet Union) served as a much-admired model to Walton’s Viola Concerto, whose first performance was played by Paul Hindemith in 1929. The similarities between the two works go beyond the three-movements structure slow-quick-slow and concern themes, accompaniments and the rondo form of the virtuoso central Scherzo.

The smart idea of such unusual coupling came to one of the few great living violinists who can really play the viola with equal skill: Isabelle van Keulen. This glorious disc is crowned by the orchestrated version of Vaughan Williams’ masterpiece The Lark Ascending.
One of German radio best orchestras, the NDR Radiophilharmonie, is conducted by Andrew Manze (Prokofiev), Keri-Lynn Wilson (Walton) and Andrew Litton (Vaughan Williams).

Daichi Fujiki / Martin Katz PLAISIR D'AMOUR

Placed first in the vocal division of the Music Competition of Japan in 2012. Made his debut as Mannio in Il trionfo di Clelia (The Triumph of Clelia), at Bologna’s Teatro Comunale in May of 2013. Went on to appear as Carmelo in Divorzio all’italiana (Divorce Italian Style) at the same theater, then as Edgar in Reimann’s Lear (conducted by Tatsuya Shimono of Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra) at Nissay Theatre, to great acclaim. Slated to make his debut at the Vienna State Opera in April of 2017 – a first for a Japanese countertenor, as Herold in Reimann’s Medea. With his international activities spanning a wide range of repertoire from baroque to contemporary, Fujiki is currently one of Japanese highest-profile artists.
After making his debut as a tenor in The Marriage of Figaro at the New National Theatre, Tokyo in 2003, studied in Bologna and Vienna.
Converted to a countertenor in 2011. In 2012, was selected to be the Austrian representative for the 31st International Hans Gabor Belvedere Singing Competition for the second consecutive year, became a finalist in the world competition, and won the Hans Gabor award.

Cristo Barrios / Andrew West DEEP LIGHT

We were inspired to gather together this collection of chamber works for reasons beyond the obvious prestige of the individual composers and the importance of their works. We wanted to present the listener with a satisfying musical journey, as much through the formal variety as the expressive content of the pieces, full of contrasts that are to be found among different movements of the same piece, as well as among the five works on the recording. Rather than offering a historical overview of the programme, we would prefer to look briefly at our choice of title, Deep Light, and its various meanings. On the one hand, it aims to evoke the luminosity that lies in the depth of feeling, represented here by two major works of the German Romantic clarinet repertoire, the Grand Duo Concertant by Carl Maria von Weber and Robert Schumann’s Phantasiestücke. Emotionally profound in their darker, slower movements, these works also display an exalted brightness in their exuberant finales. On the other hand, however, the deep and the light are simply synonyms for the serious and the playful. Seen in this way, the two German works provide the weight on the CD, while the three others fall more into the second category. It is our hope that the contrasting styles and the unusual juxtaposition of repertoire will stimulate those familiar with these works into fresh ways of listening, and provide those new to them with the delight of discovery. (Cristo Barrios / Andrew West)

Helen Callus / New Zealand Symphony Orchestra / Marc Taddei BRITISH MUSIC FOR VIOLA AND ORCHESTRA

The British-American violist Helen Callus has an intensely lyrical tone that instantly grabs your attention in the excerpts from the 1934 Suite for viola and orchestra of Vaughan Williams, a pastoral work in the truest sense. One of the few questionable moves here is that the work is presented in excerpted form, although there isn't room for the whole thing on a single CD, and it's hard to make a case for omitting any of the other works. The mood deepens and darkens in Herbert Howells' Elegy for viola, string quartet, and string orchestra, Op. 15, written in memory of a young musician killed in action in World War I. Callus applies the same lyrical approach to the Walton Viola Concerto in A minor, which comes in zippier renderings, but the consistent passion here is impressive. And it effectively sets up the less common Viola Concerto in C minor, Op. 25, of York Bowen, composed in 1907. This is a neglected gem of the viola repertory, a broad, Brahmsian work with splendid melodies. Sample the slow movement of Andante cantabile or the finale with a new cadenza by Callus herself. The New Zealand Symphony Orchestra under Marc Taddei provide idiomatic support in their home base of Wellington, and in all, if the idea of a program of British viola music doesn't fill you with excitement, listen and reconsider. (James Manheim)

James Gilchrist / Philip Dukes / Anna Tilbrook VAUGHAN WILLIAMS Songs of Travel

In his absorbing booklet essay, Stephen Connock draws attention to Vaughan Williams’s very special and deeply personal identification with the viola, justly mentioning in particular Flos campi, Suite for viola and small orchestra, and the slow movement from A London Symphony. (For my own part, I’d also cite the principal viola’s devastatingly intimate ‘alleluia’ towards the end of the Fifth Symphony’s Romanza slow movement.) Viola player Philip Dukes and pianist Anna Tilbrook make a lovely thing of the Six Studies in English Folksong (originally for cello and piano, and given in May Mukle’s 1927 transcription), and they generate a comparably stylish, keenly communicative rapport in the ravishing Romance found among the composer’s papers after his death (most likely intended for the great Lionel Tertis). The delights continue as the tenor James Gilchrist joins his colleagues for urgently expressive renderings of both the wondrous Four Hymns (1912 14) that RVW inscribed to Steuart Wilson (a performance that all but matches the lofty eloquence of Ian Partridge’s classic version with David Parkhouse and Christopher Wellington from the Music Group of London) and Richard Morrison’s fetching 2016 arrangement of ‘Rhosymedre’ (the second of the Three Preludes founded on Welsh Hymn-tunes for organ).

Elsewhere, Gilchrist and Tilbrook draw upon the reserves of experience that come with two decades of performing together to lend delectably wise advocacy to the Songs of Travel (1901 04). These nine inspired settings of Robert Louis Stevenson never seem to pall and here really do come up as fresh as the day they were conceived; this splendid partnership’s tenderly unaffected delivery of ‘Whither must I wander?’ stops me in my tracks every time – and did RVW ever write a sweeter melody? That just leaves a sequence of four songs composed between 1902 and 1908, with ‘The Sky above the Roof’ and ‘Silent Noon’ enjoying especially idiomatic treatment.

Chandos’s Potton Hall sound is agreeably airy but just occasionally not ideally focused. Don’t let that tiny niggle deter you, though; this is a strongly recommendable issue. (Andrew Achenbach / Gramophone)

Hilary Hahn RETROSPECTIVE

On January 19, Hilary Hahn releases Retrospective, an album showcasing all of her recordings for Deutsche Grammophon, along with new, unedited live performance recordings, which provide the full immediacy of the concert experience.

The collection includes at least one track from each of her 12 Deutsche Grammophon albums and live recordings from Hahn's Meistersaal concert in Berlin, an event especially dedicated to her fans. The recording includes the live performance of Mozart's Sonata KV 379, in addition to Max Richter's “Mercy” and Tina Davidson's “Blue Curve of the Earth,” with pianist Cory Smythe, from In 27 Pieces: the Hilary Hahn Encores.  

Hahn made her first record at the age of 17: Hilary Hahn Plays Bach. She has gone on to release sixteen more albums on Deutsche Grammophon and Sony, in addition to an Oscar-nominated movie soundtrack and an award-winning recording for children, and win three Grammy awards. This latest release Retrospective references Hahn’s latest decade and a half of recording activity, from age 23 to the current day. 

For many years, Hahn has received unsolicited works of art from fans of all ages at concerts, which she features on her website and social media. To include her fans in this retrospective and acknowledge their longtime presence in her career, Hahn decided to use fan art for both the cover and the internal booklet. She chose pieces by professional and amateur artists in Turkey, Switzerland, Canada, and the U.S., and the artists will be compensated for the use of their work.

Christine Fraser, who drew the cover art says, “Fan art seems like a way to honor a person and to visually say, 'thank-you.' In Hilary's case, she has provided me with such a wonderful array of music that I frequently listen to while drawing or painting, I wanted to show her my appreciation by creating something to convey that message. For me, it's exciting to see an artistic exchange like this, as music has always been a huge influence in my own creative process. I am both honored and inspired by this opportunity and it is an incredible feeling to be part of a collaboration that includes artists of different age groups, with different styles, and from various locations around the world.” 

Ellen Nisbeth / Bengt Forsberg LET BEAUTY AWAKE

Despite her youth, Ellen Nisbeth has received acclaim both in her native Sweden and abroad and is one of the Rising Stars selected by the European Concert Hall Organisation (ECHO) for the 2017/2018 season. A former student of London's Royal College of Music, she hails from a family of Scottish origin and feels a particular affinity for the landscapes of Scotland, and for the Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson.

For her first recital disc Ellen Nisbeth has devised an all-British programme which includes her own transcriptions of selected songs from Songs of Travel – Ralph Vaughan Williams's settings of poems by Stevenson. The songs intersperse the remainder of the programme, and one of them – Let Beauty Awake – has also lent its title to the entire disc. Together with the eminent pianist and chamber musician Bengt Forsberg, Nisbeth goes on to perform the impassioned Viola Sonata composed in 1919 by Rebecca Clarke – a well-known piece among viola-players, but deserving of a wider audience.

The centrepiece of this amply filled disc is Benjamin Britten’s Third Suite for Cello, transcribed for viola by Ellen Nisbeth herself – composed for Mstislav Rostropovich, the suite is based on Russian themes which Britten only presents in full towards the end of the substantial work. The same method is used in Lachrymae, here in the original version for viola and piano, where John Dowland’s song If my complaints could passions move is presented in full at the very end of the piece.